We are baby boomers who have been privileged to enjoy our dream of early retirement while traveling full-time. After 10 years, we traded our 2005 37' Allegro Bay for a 2015 DRV Tradition fifth wheel being towed by a 2015 Silverado 3500HD Duramax dually. After another couple of years full-timing, we 'hung up the keys' last spring when we traded the fifth wheel and truck for a park model and a car. We now live in Wauchula, Florida in the middle of orange groves and cattle ranches...what many call 'the real Florida.' We are not blogging as often, but we are still exploring our new home state and sharing our discoveries.. Our heartfelt thanks to our soldiers and their families for their sacrifices that have ensured our freedom to live our dream.

June 21, 2012

On Sunday, Paul was up early again and caught another beautiful sunrise.

Sunrise over the Arkansas River

A couple of squirrels were running around the campsite, and they were scurrying up and down several of the nearby trees. One of them paused several times to keep a wary eye on Paul.

A squirrel eyed Paul warily

After breakfast, we did our weekly cleaning, then we chilled out and watched the NASCAR race. We also watched many of the weekend warriors leave the campground. The funny thing is the campground never really empties out in the summer. About two thirds of the people left, and the rest stayed another day or two. Every day during the week, a few RVs left, and a few others arrived. Maumelle Park is close enough to Little Rock, we think a lot of people stay beyond the weekend or arrive during the week and just go to work from the campground.

After making a stop at Walmart on Monday morning and stopping back at the motor home to put the groceries away, we drove to Cotham's in Scott, AR for a late lunch. Marilyn and Alan, our full-timing friends who were originally from Little Rock, introduced us to Cotham's when we met them at Maumelle Park in 2009.

Cotham's Mercantile

Cotham's has two locations - one in downtown Little Rock called Cotham's in the City and the original restaurant located in Scott, AR about 30 minutes east of where we were staying in Maumelle Park called Cotham's Mercantile. The one in Scott is called Cotham's Mercantile because it is located in an old general store built in 1914. Cotham's Mercantile added a small eating area to serve lunch in 1984. Soon, people from Little Rock discovered Cotham's. It's list of customers includes former President Bill Clinton whose office was in the capitol building in Little Rock when he served as governor of Arkansas from 1983 to 1992. Cotham's Mercantile has also been featured on the Travel Channel program Man vs. Food.

Inside Cotham's Mercantile

While Cotham's has plenty of southern favorites like fried catfish, chicken fried steak, fried green tomatoes, fried chicken, and fried okra (note the frequent use of the word "fried"), it is famous for it's Hubcap Burger. The burger, which supposedly weighs about a pound, has a diameter of about 8 or 9 inches. We shared one between the two of us, and we also shared a large order of onion rings. A large order consists of 10 very large, hand-cut rings.

We split a Hubcap Burger and a large order of onion rings.

Paul had trouble getting his mouth around the Hubcap Burger.

The restaurant has antiques hanging on the walls, and the side of the restaurant where the cash register is located is set up much the way it was back in the day with old bottles, cans, toys and tools on the shelves and in the display cases.

Plenty of antiques are on display at Cotham's Mercantile.

We did a little shopping on Tuesday. We are back in the area of the country served by Kroger, which was and is Margery's favorite grocery store chain. We stopped at Kroger for Margery and at Home Depot for Paul.

On Wednesday, we drove about 40 minutes northeast of Maumelle to Cabot, AR for lupper at the Mean Pig Barbecue. Marilyn and Alan also introduced us to the Mean Pig. The Mean Pig is another area restaurant that was featured on the Food Network program Man vs. Food. In fact, Marilyn was at the restaurant when they were taping the program.

The Mean Pig Barbecue

Cute sign inside the door at the Mean Pig

The Mean Pig has sandwiches that range in price from $4 for a regular chopped pork to $7 for a super jumbo Black Angus beef. Ribs are $8 for a half rack and $15 for a full rack. You can add two sides for $1.79. Paul was hungry for chopped pork. Since they didn't have the pork available as a platter, Paul got a super jumbo chopped pork sandwich and only ate part of the bun. Margery got a half rack of ribs.

Margery had a half rack of ribs.

The pork was moist and tender, but Paul thought they put a little too much sauce on the sandwich this time. In the future, he'll ask for the sauce on the side. Margery's ribs were smokey and meaty. Although the ribs were good, they weren't as tender as they were on previous visits.

After our lupper at the Mean Pig, we headed back to the motor home to relax for the rest of the afternoon. Paul was up in time for the sunrise again the following morning.

Another beautiful sunrise over the Arkansas River

Last time, Paul was visited early in the morning by a couple of squirrels. This time, the resident geese came by eating the seeds from the tall grass on the river bank.

Geese feeding on the seeds from the tall grass

We had Thursday to relax some more before we headed out to our next destination. We'll tell you where that was in our next post.

Comments

You guys are REALLY making us homesick:o( Better watch those squirrels very closely -- they like puncturing holes in water hoses! We will have to enjoy Paul's sunrise pics -- since we are NEVER up that early in LR...LOL!